


under the stars (minimal fate required)

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-09-30 18:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10169525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: or: ways mulder and scully could've been happy





	

**01.**

The X-Files are never shut down and Scully is never abducted.

They fall into a comfortable rhythm of partnership: an incredible solve rate, an easy repertoire. (He never convinces her to believe in aliens, and she never convinces him not to.) They start spending time together outside of work - getting drinks, watching movies over long-abandoned paperwork. It’s at least two and a half years before Mulder realizes that she is his best friend. ( _Even over the Gunmen_ , he thinks about telling her, but how would that go down? They don’t say things like that to each other. She’s only ever called him Fox once, and he’s called her Dana a total of six times before she asked him to stop; what kind of friends are they?)

She almost dies - goes to pick up a witness while Mulder stays at the tiny local police station, doesn’t come back; he finds her five hours later in a basement with a gun pressed to her head from behind, has to negotiate for twenty tense minutes before the witness shoves her to the floor and tries to run out the back door, where the local police are waiting. His heart rate doesn’t slow down the entire time. He helps her off of the floor and pulls her into a fierce embrace. We never do anything like this, he thinks. She might smooth his hair, take his pulse, rub his neck, check for head injuries if he’s hurt, but they never full-on embrace each other. Her arms are pinned between them; she wasn’t expecting the hug. _You must really like me,_ she teases, poking him in the arm. _If you’re this relieved._

 _Nah_ , he says. _I hugged Frohike like this that one time we brought him on a case and he almost took a bullet; remember?_

 _Glad I measure up to Frohike’s standards,_ she says seriously. Like she really thinks he likes him better than her. He hugs her tighter because his heart is still pounding too hard and she could’ve died, really; his best friend dead in a crummy little basement because he didn't go with her to pick up a witness or he didn't negotiate right.

They keep meeting with Skinner, and he keeps looking at them disapprovingly over his glasses, and Scully keeps going head-to-head with people for him. _Mulder, I wouldn’t put myself on the line for anyone but you,_ she’d said, and goddamn it, she was right. She’s vicious in a subtle, professional way that makes people want to look to her for authority, especially him (he’d make her the supervising agent if she’d take any good cases, or if it wouldn’t ruin her career).

 _You should ask for reassignment,_ he says one day over beers, studying the stem of his bottle seriously.  

She flicks her bottle cap towards the trash can, and it lands perfectly. _Tired of me, Mulder?_ That might be hurt in her voice, because she isn’t looking at him.

_No. Just worried you’re never going to be able to go anywhere else. That you’ll be stuck with me forever._

Her ocean-colored eyes meet his. _What if I don’t want to go anywhere?_ she says, taking a sip from her bottle.

He watches the motion of her throat as she swallows the beer. He smiles. _So, I’ve finally convinced you of my paranormal beliefs, Scully?_

She smirks. _I didn’t say that._

(When she grabs his hand later, it’s not as much of a surprise as he thought it’d be. It feels right.)

 

**02.**

Melissa doesn't die and neither does Scully. She and Melissa arrive at the same time, and as she's unlocking the door, she hears the rustle of people inside, the cocking of a gun. She tells Melissa to keep a low profile and runs to Mulder's apartment where she finds Skinner, and then Mulder. Skinner refuses to give them the tape and they run.

Skinner tries to negotiate the tape for their reinstatement, but it doesn't work. Skinner meets them the next day, covertly, wearing a hood in the park. ( _He looks ridiculous, like he’s trying to be hip with the kids_ , Mulder whispers in her ear, and she has to jam her hand in her mouth because it’s definitely not a convenient time for laughing.) _There are warrants out for the both of your arrests,_ he says. _They have proof, they say, that Mulder killed his father and you're hiding him, Scully._

Mulder pales. _It's not true,_ Scully says firmly, standing her ground. _The evidence must've been manipulated. They’re trying to take us down._

Skinner looks uncomfortable, but he says he believes them. _I'm going to work on clearing your names,_ he says (awkwardly, because, you know, he’d pointed a gun at her the other day). _In the meantime, you need to disappear._

( _I'm sorry, Scully,_ Mulder says in the car. They're both grimy, in need of sleep and bathing. _I didn't mean for this to happen to both of us._

She tells him it's okay; she's sacrificed so much for this, the truth, that this feels almost mundane in comparison. Her family will be worried, but at least she isn't dying. She thinks maybe she will resent him later, but for now, she's just relieved he's alive and okay.)

(She hugs Mulder for the first time since his return from the dead when they stop for gas; says _I'm sorry_ instead of _I missed you_ into his smelly shirt. She'd thought maybe he'd killed his father but knows it isn't true, knows how much he must be hurting.)

The Gunmen get them fake IDs and Scully cuts and dyes her hair a dark brown in their crappy apartment bathroom. She asks them to get a burner phone for Melissa, something she can use to check in and reassure her family that she's okay. She and Mulder leave with the burner’s twin and hastily packed suitcases with cheap Walmart clothes in a car paid for with cash from Mulder's father's will. _What's our identity? Married couple?_ Mulder asks casually from the driver's seat, raising an eyebrow at her. (He's been joking around since they left that gas station, after embracing for what seemed like forever, and she recognizes it as a coping mechanism. That night, when they’d stopped, she’d put her hand on his knee and asked him to talk to her - _I can see you’re hurting, Mulder, please, this isn’t healthy_ . He got mad at first, stalked off into the darkness. He returned upset, later, cried and let Scully hold him, buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. _He was a bastard, but he was my father,_ he’d whispered hollowly against his skin. They don’t discuss it the next morning, but they can tell a barrier’s broke. Since then, she’s let him joke, pretend that nothing is wrong.)

 _We don't have any rings,_ she says, fingering the ends of her dark, shorn hair. (It hasn't been this short since 1993, at least, and never this dark. She yanks it back in one of the half-ponytail things she used to wear all the time then, and Mulder smiles familiarly and tugs at it. She's glad he's not dead.)

They get a ratty little hotel room with one bed ( _married couple, remember,_ Mulder says, waggling his eyebrows). Scully calls her sister and pulls at the comforter with her overlong fingernails while Mulder showers. She smiles as soon as she hears her voice.

 _You've gotten yourself into a pickle here, Day,_ Melissa says, and it sounds like she's teasing, but it comes out strained because she's worried about her sister. _I blame your partner._

 _Oh, me too,_ Scully says loudly as he comes out of the bathroom. _He's impossible to live with, really._ She giggles - giggles, my god, has she gone off in the deep end - when Mulder lobs a balled-up t-shirt at her head.

 _Seriously, Dana,_ Melissa says. _Are you okay?_

 _Yeah,_ Scully says. Mulder flops on the bed beside her, mattress rippling under his weight. It's beyond bizarre to be actually sharing a space with him. _Are you?_ she continues, tugging a thread loose from the duvet. _I'm worried about you and Mom._ (Because maybe the people who were going to kill her, and probably Melissa when they saw her, won't hesitate to go after her family. Leverage. Punishment. She thinks about convincing Skinner to put them in witness protection.)

 _We are,_ Missy says. _They… question us about you a lot. About Fox. About where you are._

Scully bites her lip. Skinner swore he was doing his best the last time they talked, but she hates putting her family through this. _It'll all be over soon,_ she promises. _I'll be home someday. I love you._

 _Love you, too, Day._ Melissa sounds less relaxed than Scully's ever heard her in her entire life when she hangs up.

 _You okay?_ Mulder says.

 _Yeah,_ she says. She'd say what she's thinking - that she's just happy Missy’s alive, that she heard what she did before opening the door - but it seems selfish, considering what's happened to Mulder's father, considering Samantha. She ignores the thought. They've been ignoring a lot, here; sleeping in seedy hotels is an easy escape, they can joke and flip channels on the TV and pretend nothing from the outside world exists. It's the most mundane existence she and Mulder have ever shared, and it's somewhat blissful: Mulder is fun, almost, when he's not absorbed into the monster of the moment, and this is the first time they've ever hung out, at least without work as a pretense/distraction. (Even if hanging out involves sharing a bed to keep their identity in place.)

 _Are you sure you don't want me to sleep on the floor?_ he asks, almost nervously, as she stretches out beside him.

 _No, you just came back from the dead,_ she says. _It'd be cruel._ She flips off the light.

(On the first night, she ends up curled against his back, face pressed in the space between his shoulder blades. On the third night, he rolls back against her, burying his face in her chemical-y hair, soft from the hotel conditioner. By the seventh, she's unintentionally grabbing him in their sleep and he rolls closer instead of away. They don't talk about it.)

On their fourth week as fugitives, they're playing Blackjack on the cracked concrete under the street lights, feet dangling in the five foot end of the pool. Mulder's been quiet, chewing on a straw in his mouth. _Hit me,_ Scully says.

He starts, sets a card down absently. She resists the urge to swear: 24. _Are you happy, Scully?_ he says softly.

She's startled by the question, tempted to say as happy as anyone can be in this situation. _I'm thinking of it as an overdue vacation,_ she says instead.

He nods, straw bobbing in his mouth. _I just feel bad about tearing you away from your life,_ he says. _You didn't ask for this._

Scully deals them a new hand, trying to meet his eyes. _I didn't ask for it, but they involved me when they abducted me and tried to kill me and my sister,_ she says. And hurt you, poisoned you, killed your father, she adds silently. _And besides that, even if I wasn't dismissed from the FBI, I would've come with you anyway._

He looks up at her in shock. She smiles shyly, setting the cards down between them, pokes his foot with hers in the pool.

 _I guess it's just for the X-Files credential,_ he says finally, waggling his eyebrows. _A real life man come down from the dead._

 _Shut up,_ she says, splashing him. They play cards until a family comes out with grouchy kids wrapped in striped beach towels; they never want to risk being recognized.

(Eventually, Skinner gets their names cleared and they come home and get their old jobs back and Scully hugs her sister gratefully. But for now, they play cards under the stars. It's almost good, almost perfect.)

 

**03.**

_Hey, Scully,_ he says, watching the curve of her neck as she puts files away.

 _Yes, Mulder?_ she replies, somewhere between amused and irritated.

He scuffs his shoes on the floor. _Would you, uh. Like to get dinner with me?_ Jesus Christ, he hasn't been this nervous asking anyone out since college. Of course, he's only dated Diana since college, and that didn't go over very well.

 _Sure,_ she says, not looking up. _I get to pick this time, though. And can I put a veto on discussing certain cases? It's_ Friday night, _Mulder._

 _I know,_ he says. _I, um, actually. Wanted to know if you wanted to go out. With me._

She looks up at him with surprise, although not rejection or disgust. His stomach flips like a pancake. _On a date,_ he supplies, and immediately wants to slap himself.

 _You're asking me on a date,_ Scully says. Matter-of-fact. Clarifying tone.

 _Um…_ He scuffs his shoe again, looking at the floor. They need to sweep in here; the janitor only comes down by request and he has a vendetta against Mulder for his discarded sunflower seeds. _Yes?_ he says questioningly, and waits for the end of their friendship.

_Okay._

He looks up; she's replacing files in the cabinet calmly again, as if he's asked her to pick up a candy bar at the store or something. _Okay?_ he repeats.

She looks up, the ghost of a smile gracing her lips. _Okay,_ she echoes, warmly.

The relief is overwhelming. _Okay,_ he says another time, smiling. _Okay._

 

**04.**

They kiss in Mulder’s hallway, and Scully doesn’t go to Utah.

( _I wish you wouldn’t quit,_ Mulder whispers against her scalp that morning in bed, and Scully tugs his t-shirt and says, _I’ll keep fighting. This isn’t over._ )

Mulder tries to get the X-Files back, tries to convince Skinner to let Scully come back, but it nevers works. Scully becomes a doctor, takes up permanent residence in his bedroom. (She goes to Nevada with him, on a dare, and when they come back, there’s a waterbed, and she agrees to stay over at his house; _every once in a while,_ she says sternly over his pillows. [It’s a lot more than every once in a while, and he never lets her forget it.]) He steals X-Files from their old office under Spender and Fowley’s noses and they argue about them over takeout.

( _I miss it, sometimes, being at the FBI,_ she tells the space between his shoulder blades one morning, hugging him tightly from behind. She’s become clingier since, doesn’t quite know why. She didn’t know she could love someone this catastrophically.

 _I miss you being there with me,_ he tells her, clasping her hands and pulling them up to rest against his chest.)

After they’re dragged to quarantine and the Syndicate dies off in a fire, Spender doesn’t recommend Mulder be reassigned to the X-Files. _Quit,_ Scully says that night. _The FBI hasn’t done anything for you but ruin you. They don’t deserve you, and you don’t need them._

 _I don’t want to quit,_ he says. _I don’t want this to be over._

 _We aren’t over,_ she tells him. _We’re both still here. We don’t need the FBI. We can still find the truth._

 _It’ll be dangerous,_ he says into her mouth. (She’s pressed him up against the cabinets, kissing him so hard he thinks he’ll melt.) Without their credentials, there’ll be a lot more roadblocks; and no one cares if two ex-FBI agents die in a random accident. They’ll be vulnerable.

She smiles. _When has that ever stopped us before?_

 

**05.**

The IVF works.

Mulder doesn’t expect it to, because honestly, how the hell could anything happen in their lives that’s as perfect as this? They are the type of people who don’t get to kiss, whose sisters stay lost and whose daughters die before they get the chance to know them. He expects this to end in tragedy, expects it to end with Scully crying into his shirt and him unable to comfort her - although he doesn’t want it to. He wants to make her happy, to be able to do one damn thing right. He waits for her on her couch. The Christmas tree she’s set up in the corner sits dormant and dark; he thinks about plugging the lights in.

Scully comes home, and his stomach twists when he turns over and sees the smile on her face. She looks happier than he’s seen her in months; the last time she smiled like that is when he opened his eyes in the hospital at some point after she woke him up from Spender’s botched brain surgery; she’d smiled like he was the entire world, squeezed his fingers. _Scully?_ he whispers in wonder, shifting on the couch to sit up.

She smiles, hand ghosting her abdomen. _It worked_.

He gapes at her, mouth hanging over a little. _Scully, that’s fantastic!_ He moves towards her, expecting a hug or a chaste kiss to the forehead, but she kisses him first, hands cupping the side of his face.

She pulls away a minute later, red already spreading across her face. _I’m sorry, Mulder_ , she whispers, _I don’t want to obligate you to anything, you didn’t agree to_ …

He kisses her again before she finishes; he’s wanted to do that for years now. _Scully, I want this_ , he says. _I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t_.

She smiles again, eyes welling up, and buries her head in his shoulder. He rubs circles on the small of her back, trying to remember how he ever got here. _This is all I’ve ever wanted_ , she says into his sweater, so quietly he almost can’t hear her. _This is it._

 

**06** **.**

Mulder doesn’t go to Oregon, or he doesn’t leave three days after their son is born, or he comes home to find them waiting for him and he and Scully cry in the threshold of her apartment, or Scully never gives William up and the three of them disappear into the sunset after breaking Mulder out of prison. They get to raise their son, watch him grow up to morph into a child who inherited their looks and intelligence and Scully’s snark and Mulder’s curiosity. In some cases, there is another baby, and in other cases, there’s only ever William, their miracle baby. But in every case, there is the three of them and they are happy. A family.

 

**07.**

The IVF doesn’t work, and Scully never gets pregnant. (She gets uncontrollably sad about it, sometimes, like when Bill and Tara call to announce that their second child is on the way, or she talks to an old friend who has to go in the other room because her kids won’t let her talk on the phone in peace, or - one time - because they see a baby in a dingy small-town diner, and she gets teary and tries to hide it with scratchy napkins. Mulder tries to comfort her every time, although he’s worried he’s just making it worse - it’s his fault she can never have a baby. He has his moments of teary-eyed weakness himself.)

They go to Oregon, but Scully isn’t sick and Mulder isn’t abducted. Two months later, the X-Files are shut down. _Too much money towards a dead-end project,_ the man who comes to tell them says. Scully surprises them both by being the one to retort sharply, standing up and glaring at him like he is the scum of the earth and sliding in a _sir_ at the end to barely pass it off as respectable. _Scully, it’s okay,_ Mulder says quietly when they’re alone in not-their-office.

 _Mulder, this is your life’s work,_ she says, still breathing a little hard and glaring at the door.

He reaches down and takes her hand. _It’s okay._

They’re reassigned to the VCS - Skinner fights hard for them to stay partners. (They go to his office to thank him, and he looks at them critically, says, _As long as you don’t let… whatever this is… interfere with your work, then we won’t have a problem, agents_ with a spastic motioning towards them and red spreading across his cheeks. Which leads to a ten-minute bickering about who is the reason Skinner knows.)

They stay at the FBI for two more years. Things are different, darker, in the VCS, but Scully still does autopsies and they still have to travel out of town sometimes (it’s almost more exciting to be in a hotel with ten other agents; it makes sneaking into one of their hotel rooms more risky, and Scully seems to like it) and they still are a singular unit no matter how many people are in the room.

(Things come to a head when they are both taken by a serial killer, found bound and bruised and traumatized together just before the man starts to kill them.)

 _Let’s quit,_ Mulder says in the hospital that night, tracing her fingers with his. Their hands haven’t stopped shaking since they were rescued; they’ve held hands since their wrists were untied, in front of the entire task force, and don’t care.

 _Mulder_ , she says, astonished.

 _The X-Files are gone. And besides that, we can’t keep doing this, Scully. We can’t keep almost losing each other._ He kisses the back of her hand, a small, warm patch on her chilled skin. _Remember what I told you in Oregon? There has to be an end. I’m ready._

(Skinner looks almost sad when they hand in their resignations. He shakes their hands and tells them their services will be missed and not to be strangers. _I’m surprised he didn’t hug us,_ Mulder says in the elevator. _Skinman’s gone soft._

 _Let’s invite him to our wedding,_ Scully says slyly, and can’t stop giggling at the expression on Mulder’s face.)

They buy an apartment together, one that doesn’t have bloodstains or monsters in the corner, where no one has ever died. They get jobs teaching at Quantico - Scully teaching pathology and Mulder teaching profiling, at first, but eventually an additional class on paranormal investigations that takes a large amount of fighting to receive. He writes books at night, putting his insomnia to good use. ( _Thank God you have something to do at night,_ Scully says, _or I would never get any sleep._ ) The X-Files are eventually reopened by an eager agent, Monica Reyes, and a more reluctant agent, John Doggett, who have some dark past no one asks them about and no one wants to - they're good friends, good partners. Agent Reyes insists on Mulder consulting, which leads to them being semi-regular appearances at the apartment (there are usually arguments where Reyes and Mulder gang up on Doggett; Scully feels sorry for the guy, has to intervene at least 70% of the time; she grows an affection for these outcast agents that remind her of she and Mulder when they were young).

 _Let’s have a baby,_ Mulder says one lazy summer night almost three years after they’ve left the FBI. They have a habit of taking blankets up to the roof of their building and watching the stars (or looking for UFOS, as Mulder calls it), and Scully’s curled beside him, nearly asleep.

 _We can’t. The IVF process didn’t work,_ she says sleepily, sadly into his shoulder.

 _So we try again. I have more money than I did when we tried the first time - my mom left the entire estate to me. We can afford it._ His palm nearly covers her forehead, brushing hair away from her face. _Or we could adopt. Save someone. We could get Skinner to write a letter of recommendation._

 _I love you,_ she says. At his sharp breath of pleasant surprise, she realizes she’s never said it. She rises up on her knees and kisses him under the stars.

 

**08.**

Mulder doesn’t join the FBI because Samantha is never abducted. Dana joins the FBI, stays at Quantico. They meet by accident - she’s guest-lecturing at the university where he teaches. There’s a teacher’s lounge and a friend of hers tugs her towards him, saying she needs to try the coffee loud enough for everyone to hear, but whispering something about how she should go talk to the psychology professor because he’s cute and exactly her type, she swears.

Her friend tugs her forward and she stumbles, almost crashing into him and the table at the same time. _Sorry_ , she says sheepishly, reaching for a mug on the rack.

 _It’s fine_ , he says _. Although the coffee isn’t nearly_ that _good._ He smiles; he has a nice smile. _I’m Fox Mulder._ He extends his hand.

She takes it. _Dana Scully._


End file.
